


Growing Pains

by tekmessa



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-12
Updated: 2012-10-12
Packaged: 2017-11-16 03:43:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/535103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tekmessa/pseuds/tekmessa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jackson simply has to be the best, or he might as well not exist at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Growing Pains

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: Spoilers for _The Notebook_.

It's a hot day in August, only a couple of weeks before Jackson's first day in high school, when David Whittemore welcomes a client into his house. Usually he is intent on keeping his work in his office, as he is a firm believer in spending quality time with his family at home, but he makes an exception when Mrs. Martin shows up on his doorstep without a forewarning that day.

Jackson is in the kitchen when the doorbell chimes, his head bent over the Sudoku from yesterday's newspapers, chewing on a cookie and idly drawing a lacrosse stick into a corner of the paper. Sunbeams are dancing over the polished table and the scent of roses is heavy in the air because Jackson's father has decided in July that his wife needs to be gifted with a single rose every day. There's something sickeningly sweet about the gesture and Jackson's mother is enjoying it greatly, going by her delighted reaction every time his father hands her another flower, but Jackson only ever rolls his eyes and puts up with the increasing smell. Love and, to a lesser degree, romance – Jackson observes and recognizes such things in a detached way, but it only ever makes him feel uncomfortable and angry and lost, and he has long since learned to pretend that it isn't happening around him.

Anyway, it has been a rather boring day so far, and Jackson doesn't expect it to change. The one person he would consider calling to hang out with is in Hawaii, visiting his grandparents. Danny does this every year, and Jackson is used to spending what little time he stays in Beacon Hills during the summer alone.

He scribbles a three into one of the boxes and ignores the exchanged greetings at the door. His father's voice sounds soft and concerned, the answering voice is female and agitated, and Jackson truly couldn't care less, but no matter how much he tries to narrow his focus down to the Sudoku, the woman's voice keeps rising and disturbing his concentration.

"– and I'm done. I'm truly done this time, David, and I came here because I was hoping you could help me find someone, who is specialized in divorces. The best, of course. I plan to take everything from him. I want him to –"

"Jackson, dear?"

Jackson looks up, and his mother closes the kitchen door. She isn't alone, though. Lydia Martin is standing next to her, her back straight and her expression even and controlled, exactly the way she always acts in school. It's when he sees her that Jackson is able to identify the woman's voice as Mrs. Martin's, whom he remembers meeting fleetingly a few times over the years at Christmas parties his parents attended with him.

"Your father and Lydia's mother have something to discuss, and I was hoping you could keep Lydia company," Jackson's mother says, her hand light on Lydia's back and her eyes intent on Jackson. "You are friends, right?"

Friends. They are, in a way – in the way that both of them have accomplished to reach the peak of popularity in junior high and know it. Sitting at the same table at lunch and greeting one another in the hallways and being invited to the same parties, that's what they do, that's what they have in common. They could be called friends, sure.

Jackson shrugs, says, "Sure," and waves his hand towards a chair opposite of his.

Lydia smiles her perfect smile, glossy and charming and totally artificial, and one that makes guys like Stiles Stilinski stumble over his own feet and Isaac Lahey flush beet-red. Jackson, however, knows this smile like he knows his own smirk, well practiced in front of a mirror, and it doesn't affect him. He looks at his mother, who has tilted her head to the side, tiny creases on her forehead and so obviously not happy with Jackson.

"Perhaps," she says, "you want to watch a movie together. In your room." There's something about the way she says it, something about the way her eyes cut to the right where his father's study is, and the sound of Mrs. Martin's voice is still audible through the wall even if her words aren't intelligible.

Jackson sighs, put-upon, because, yes, obviously Lydia's parents are getting a divorce, big deal that. Divorces happen all the time, and Lydia must be aware of it because she has come here with her mother today, and really, every time Jackson has met Lydia's parents over the years, they have been arguing, so he doesn't really think that the recent turn of events has come as a surprise to anyone.

But his mother keeps looking at him, and Jackson feels his resolve crumble under the weight of her eyes because he knows that she expects him to act like the perfect son and friend, and distract Lydia from her home situation. If Jackson doesn't do it, his mother will be disappointed in him.

Jackson can _not_ disappoint her.

He puts on his own smile, just as fake as Lydia's is, and says, "We might. You want to?"

There's a lull in the conversation next door, and the light, falling through the window onto Lydia's head, reflects brilliantly on the pale red waves. _Strawberry blond_ , that's what Stiles always whispers to Scott when Lydia passes them on her way to her next class, never deigning to give them as much as a brief glance. Maybe Stiles thinks that he's waxing poetically, or maybe he's simply thinking about food all the time, but Jackson, for one, doesn't bother with flowery language. Lydia's hair has a pale red color and it suits her just fine, that's all that is to it. It's definitely no reason to start drooling.

"I wouldn't mind." Lydia brushes her hand over the short skirt of her dress, drawing attention to her legs, and Jackson isn't dead. He knows that Lydia is attractive – Hell, let's face it: she's the prettiest girl in Beacon Hills –, but Jackson also knows that she's nothing like the girls that fall all over themselves to go out with him just once. Lydia Martin is high-maintenance and she knows exactly what she wants and how to get it. In the past school term she has managed to snatch up a guy two years her senior, and Jackson doesn't have any illusions as to where he stands with her.

He still appreciates the view, though, even if he's quick to remind himself that his mother is in the room and still waiting for him to get more space between Lydia and her mother. Dropping the pencil on the kitchen table, Jackson leaves the Sudoku behind – he never finishes them, anyway – and motions for Lydia to follow him to his room. His mother radiates approval now and promises to bring snacks later, and Lydia thanks her most politely because Lydia always knows how to charm everyone if she wants to.

She loses some of her cold perfection once they reach his room, though, relaxing somewhat, far away from prying eyes – or maybe because she's farther away from the sound of her mother's voice, the constant reminder of what's going on in her family.

Jackson starts to think that perhaps his mother did have a point.

Walking over to the shelf with his DVDs, he wonders which movie might be to Lydia's liking, but all he owns are sports or action movies and he has gathered from Lydia's conversations with other girls in his vicinity that Lydia watches romance flicks and nothing else.

Which might just be another lie Lydia has cultivated for her persona in school. Who can tell with Lydia?

Jackson's fingers hover over _Hoosiers_ and he glances at Lydia, who isn't shy at all and has decided to make herself comfortable on Jackson's bed. She has taken off her shoes – and sometimes Jackson wonders how Lydia manages to walk in heels that high, but Lydia has perfected it at the age of twelve and almost never wears shoes without heels since her thirteenth birthday. She leans her back against the headboard of his bed, for all the world looking as if the room belongs to her or as if she belongs into this room; it's sometimes hard to tell with Lydia, but fact is, once she walks into a room, she owns it in a way Jackson tries his hardest to achieve, but always feels as if he never quite accomplishes it.

Her composure is perfect, only the slight tilt of her head and the far-away look in her eyes gives something away, something that makes Lydia look younger and a little less put together, and that's what makes Jackson pull his hand back from the DVD.

"You know what," he says. "My mother rented a film yesterday and she loved it. I'm gonna go get that one."

Lydia looks startled, her hand comes up and she points at his shelf of DVDs, but Jackson doesn't wait for her response and disappears. A moment later he is back in the room, the movie in his hand, and from the description it sounds awfully dull and kitschy, but he guesses that Lydia might enjoy it. His mother had been delighted to give him the DVD when he'd asked her for it, so he assumes that he made a good choice. And he can sit through approximately two hours of chick-flick just once. Afterwards he will be able to forget all about this film and never watch it again.

"It's from 2004. You might have already watched it." He puts the movie in and takes the remote before he settles down on the bed next to Lydia and holds out the cover for her to take. "It's _The Notebook_."

"No. I haven't watched it before," Lydia says quietly, reading the back of the cover, her eyebrows steadily rising.

"It sounds like a pretty girly film. Not my thing, obviously, but you're going to like it." He hits start, barely noticing the sharp look Lydia shoots at him before she smoothes her expression into one of angelic sweetness, which never bodes well for the receiver.

"Of course. As long as it's a girly film," Lydia agrees, and it's the silky, saccharine tone of her voice that tells him that he might have made a mistake, either with choosing that particular film or with the choice of his words.

It's too late to have regrets. The movie is already starting, and Jackson certainly isn't going to try and make amends or admit it.

The film is predictable if admittedly well made and well acted, and Jackson doesn't hate it as much as he pretends to. He doesn't understand or believe what the movie is selling, though. A man who waits for some woman he'd known for all of two months before they were separated during war, and who builds a house for her while she is engaged to someone else, on the off-chance that she might change her mind – that's rather silly. That they end as a couple, that they spend the rest of their lives together even after one of them forgets their history and needs to be reminded of who they are every day, and that they die in the same night, well, Jackson assumes that such things are to be expected of a film that tries to sell the concept of true love or love being real and eternal and unconditional.

Jackson only shakes his head at the idea. He knows better.

Next to him, Lydia is sniffling quietly, but she doesn't cry at the right moments, and Jackson is certain that it isn't truly the movie that has brought tears to her eyes. However, he lets her pretend and plays along. Afterwards he teases her that the silly story must have moved her a lot if she cried over it, and Lydia nods, collecting her dignity and declaring the movie to be one of her favorites from this day onwards.

Not much later, Jackson's mother comes to his room and tells them that Lydia's mother is ready to leave. Immediately Lydia's mask is back in place, what little release she'd found during the last hours is lost again. She gets up from Jackson's bed and slips her shoes on. The line of her shoulders is awfully tense, though, something that Jackson hadn't really noticed before he'd had her lounging on his bed next to him, and Jackson's stomach twists painfully at the sight.

"Hey," he calls after her when she's leaving his room.

Lydia stops in the doorway and turns around. There's no sun in her hair now. On the contrary, the door allows a shadow to darken her figure. However, her eyes are still bright.

"You know, I'm free tomorrow afternoon. If you want to, we could go to the mall or something."

There's a moment of surprise, given away by Lydia's eyes only, and then she purses her lips and shrugs casually. "Well, I'll see if I can fit you in my calendar."

Jackson rolls his eyes.

Lydia winks at him and then she's gone, leaving no trace behind. Or so he thinks until the night comes and he goes to bed to find the spicy smell of her perfume lingering on his sheets and pillow.

It smells nice.

*

High school starts exactly the way junior high started, with everyone trying to find their place in the social hierarchy among their classmates and fighting for the top spots. Jackson doesn't just fight, he takes it over immediately because that's what he has been doing for years, knowing that he has to be the best, always, that he can never be less or he'll lose everything and be an unworthy nobody to everyone and anyone.

This kind of attitude towards life might look strange to a casual observer and no one, not even Jackson's parents, can figure out the exact reason behind Jackson's almost obsessive drive for perfection and accomplishment. They assume that it has something to do with the fact that Jackson's birth parents died before he was born and that he's adopted, and they aren't wrong about it. However, there's more to the story, a fundamental part they don't know about because they have no idea what else happened the day Jackson found out that he was adopted.

Jackson himself cannot remember it clearly anymore, either. It's more like an impression, a vague memory that is stuck to his mind and that he cannot get rid of because his whole person has been shaped accordingly over the years.

What happened is something like that: The day Jackson finds out by accident that he's adopted is the same day that a particular conversation happens to take place in kindergarten. Some girl cries that nobody loves her, and the kindergarten teacher is quick to say that no, she cannot be right because parents always love their children, that they have to love their children, that it's a biological imperative for people to love those they've given birth to. Children are a part of their parents, they have been created by them and therefore it's impossible for parents not to love the children they conceived and gave birth to. When another boy speaks up and claims that his father loves the boy's big brother more, the kindergarten teacher assures the children that parents love all their children equally because, again, nature demands that parents love all of their children and that the children therefore don't have to worry.

It's a very simplistic way to view or explain parental love, but the intention behind it had been well meant.

The same night, Jackson's mother tucks Jackson in bed, smoothes her hand over his blanket and says to him, "Sweet dreams, Jackson, and don't forget: Mommy and Daddy love you very, very much," as she does every night.

"And I love you and Daddy," Jackson responds in kind, no doubt in his voice or his heart.

Not yet.

An hour later, he's thirsty, gets out of bed and accidentally listens in to a conversation his mother has with one of the guests at their dinner party. A glass shatters on the floor in a million shards, broken beyond repair. Jackson's father picks his son up and carries him back to his room, and Jackson's parents do their best to explain to Jackson that, yes, it's true what he has heard, he is adopted, and no, they aren't his birth parents, but they do love him very, very much because Jackson is the best and the smartest and the most talented kid in the world and, really, how could they not love him? He's a brilliant child, he makes his parents so proud every day because he knows so much and runs so fast and catches the balls so well and and and ...

But all that five-year-old Jackson takes from this conversation to heart is that his parents aren't really his parents, that everything he'd believed to be or to be true had been a lie, and that those people are not forced by nature to love him just because, like his birth parents would have been. They only love him because he's doing something right, and the moment he does something wrong or someone better comes along, this could change.

Jackson isn't like other kids; he isn't anyone's child and has to earn being loved.

Jackson curls up under his blankets, hears his parents say, "Sweet dreams, Jackson, and never forget: Mommy and Daddy love you very, very much," and is incapable of opening his mouth to give the expected reply. He swallows against the lump in his throat, but it doesn't go away, and his head is drumming, his mind repeating over and over again what he'd heard in kindergarten that day.

That's the day Jackson resolves that he's going to have to always be the best at everything and anything to be someone, to be loved. After all, if he's anything less than the best, he won't be anything to anyone.

*

"How was your summer, Jackson? Did anything interesting happen?" Danny asks at lunch on their first day as freshmen in high school. His skin is tanned dark after the months he has spent in the Hawaiian sun, and he looks warm and relaxed, so different from the way Jackson always feels. Danny has already told Jackson all about his own holidays, about his doting grandparents and his noisy cousins, and now he's watching Jackson attentively because Danny might be the only person in this school that genuinely likes Jackson beyond Jackson's status as top jock in class.

There has to be a reason for Danny's friendship, a reason Jackson has never quite figured out, and maybe it had been dumb luck that had had Danny Mahealani choosing the seat next to Jackson in elementary school. Jackson had been quiet and off-standish at the time, already worrying about needing to be the best, and Danny had smiled and talked to him despite his snappish behavior, probably because Danny hadn't known anyone else at the time. But after a few weeks Danny had talked to all the kids in class and had befriended lots of them loosely, yet it still had been Jackson he'd chosen as a best friend despite all of Jackson's shortcomings. By the end of first grade, Jackson had been used to having Danny around, and they had become friends. Danny had been the one, who had grounded Jackson among the children of their age while Jackson had watched the older kids with rapt attention and figured out who and what he needed to become to be always on top in future.

Now, he has finally reached high school, and Jackson already knows that he's going to join the lacrosse team as well as the swim team, and maybe he'll play basketball or baseball, too. He's attractive and wears the right brand of clothes, and he also knows how to act to make heads turn. Smiles and sneers are weapons he wields to manipulate, just like words, and Jackson doesn't mind people knowing how well he does in class, but he's careful not to mention how hard he has to work for it and how many hours of studying it takes for him to get straight A's.

"Yes, Jackson. Did anything interesting happen this summer?" Lydia puts down her food on their table and chooses the seat across from Jackson, her public smile firmly in place. She's perfectly put together as usual, her dress just on the right side of too tight and too short, and there hasn't been any gossip about her parents' divorce in school so far.

Lydia carries herself with the grace and certainty of someone, who is always in control. Looking at her doesn't allow anyone to figure out what has happened this summer or how many awful conversations she has had to endure with one or both of her parents.

After spending some time with her during the summer, Jackson knows some of it, definitely not everything, but enough to be aware that Lydia would hate for her private life to be discussed by everyone. However, if Jackson wanted to, he could expose everything right now.

"No," he says, watching as Lydia pierces a tiny piece of carrot with her fork and examines it critically before she decides whether the food is worthy to get in contact with her body or not. "No. I was in Cannes for a month, and then I spent some weeks here before I flew to the Hamptons with my parents."

He switches topics then, and by the time lunch is over, he has convinced Danny to accompany him to the lacrosse try-outs and accepted that Danny has zero intention to join the swim team, while Lydia is cheerfully chatting with some girls about a party at the end of the week.

*

Lydia dumps her latest boyfriend two months into freshman year, stating that he was too clingy and not quite up to her standards. Danny laughs really hard at this explanation because Lydia's ex is actually the captain of the lacrosse team and an easy-going junior, who has good chances to be valedictorian next year.

"Clinginess is awful," Jackson says, his arm slung around his girl of the week, a pretty brunette, who always agrees with everything Jackson says. She's a good kisser and likes being the envy of plenty of other girls. By the end of the week, she'll be history, though, like every girl before her because she _is_ exactly like every girl before her. "Better luck next time."

Lydia smiles at him so sweetly it's like poison. "Thank you, Jackson. Whatever would I do without your brilliant advice?"

"Curl up and cry?"

"It's like you read my mind," Lydia says dryly, and then she starts to discuss with Danny a problem she is currently having with her new laptop. Jackson meanwhile decides to make out with the girl next to him. However, he takes the time to throw critical glances at Lydia whenever she keeps up a little too well with Danny's techno babble, and Lydia is always quick to make up excuses for her vast knowledge.

It's probably the least secret secret in Beacon Hills that Lydia Martin is highly intelligent.

Jackson still remembers Lydia pointing out their teachers' mistakes obnoxiously and loudly when they were in second, third and fourth grade, and the science books she used to carry around everywhere she went. However, in fifth grade Lydia apparently decided to invent herself anew, and with the diligence and confidence she has always applied to everything in her life, she became the typical popular girl that ruled at first people of her age and later everyone. She stopped bringing along her books, ditching them in favor of flashy popular magazines, and started to pretend that she wasn't smarter than everyone else, her eyes wide and innocuous and convincing.

Of course, the fact that she still gets straight A's in every class and her general impatience with people not as smart or competent as she is – which, admittedly, is pretty much everyone in Beacon Hills – oftentimes leads to her breaking character of the shallow persona she plays in public. Jackson always responds to it with one of his are-you-kidding-me looks, reminding her of the person she's currently pretending to be. It allows Lydia to slip back into her persona, and everyone else always just goes along with it because she is Lydia Martin.

Admittedly, Jackson isn't doing the quiet reminders just for her sake. He's quite aware of his selfish reasons, namely that Lydia is one of his greatest competitors when it comes to being the most academically accomplished person in a room. As long as Lydia pretends to be less intelligent than she is, Jackson can have the spotlight in class and among his peers.

The only other person, who could rival Jackson when it comes to grades, would be the sheriff's kid, but Stiles has problems with keeping himself focused on anything and is pretty much incapable of sitting still. Furthermore, Stiles's general status as a nobody in school allows Jackson to disregard and ignore Stiles's existence as thoroughly as Lydia does.

Jackson doesn't bother with people, who don't endanger his position as the best, because harassing those kids would be a waste of his time and energy, and Lydia doesn't bother with anyone, whom she hasn't chosen to grace with her attention first. Tough luck for kids like Isaac Lahey, who is living in the poor excuse for a house across the street from Jackson and who tries to ask Lydia out, now that she has dumped her boyfriend.

After listening to Isaac's awkward proposition of a date, Lydia looks at Isaac and laughs.

"How about you come back when the bike you're riding to school has an engine?" she asks him in her sweetest tone, and Isaac slouches off, fading into invisibility once again.

Jackson laughs at his expense because, really, anyone, who has known Lydia for more than a day, would have known better than to try anything without having been encouraged by her first. Jackson's girl of the week chimes in because she seems to find everything funny that makes Jackson laugh.

She will be dumped by Friday, definitely.

"Was that really necessary?" Danny asks sternly, the only one of their group, who hasn't laughed or even smiled. There's a reprimand in his voice, and Jackson tries to stop chuckling, but he doesn't try particularly hard. "Isaac is a decent guy. You could have given him a chance."

Lydia sighs, already conveying how ludicrous the thought is. "I'm not going to date a loser. I like my men competent and promising."

"You don't even know Isaac."

"And I have no intention on changing that."

Danny frowns unhappily because he cares too much, but Jackson gets Lydia. Lydia has goals and she probably has already her whole future planned ahead to the last detail. If someone isn't useful to her and doesn't further her goals, she won't give them the time of day. This approach to life makes sense to Jackson, and that's one of the reasons he likes her around. Next to Danny, Lydia has actually become Jackson's favorite person since the summer.

*

It turns out that Lydia genuinely loves lacrosse. Oftentimes she can be found sitting on the bleachers during practice, and she's really happy for them when Jackson and Danny make the team even if they're only second string. She's cheerful and enthusiastic about it, completely ignoring her ex, the captain, who cheerfully ignores her presence right back and has already moved on to another girl, and she decides to throw a party after the first lacrosse game of the season.

As it happens, the first lacrosse game in Jackson's freshman year is also the first game that Jackson gets to participate in because one of the players finds himself injured after ten minutes and Coach Finstock decides that Jackson is the most promising in line.

He doesn't have to regret his choice. Jackson makes the most of it, scoring twice and helping his teammates to score three more goals. He's instantly promoted to first line, and Jackson feels deep satisfaction at the thought that freshmen usually don't make first line on the team that early into the season.

"First line, huh?" Lydia says, her eyes shining, when she hands him a drink at the party. "Not bad, but it's not quite captain, you know?"

Jackson rolls his eyes at her. "Well, I'm already captain of the swim team. It's only a matter of time until I'm captain of the lacrosse team as well, trust me." In his mind he's already working on a training plan that will allow him to spend more time on lacrosse practice without losing time for social outings or studying for school. He wonders if people really need more than five hours of sleep on a regular basis, or if he can cut back on that some more.

Lydia looks at him thoughtfully, something calculating in her eyes, and she ignores the party and the loud music thrumming in the air as well as the less than subtle attempts of her current boyfriend to get her attention. It's a sophomore this time, Marcel O'Leary, handsome in a ruggedly way, and captain of the basketball team, but overall he has been a bore in the two weeks he has joined Jackson, Danny and Lydia at their table. Jackson is secretly hoping that Lydia will get rid of the guy soon.

Lydia smacks her lips together and smiles. "I'll make you a deal, Jackson. Make captain of the lacrosse team before this season ends, and I'll go out with you."

Jackson snorts, covering up his surprise with condescension. "Why would I want that?"

"Because," Lydia says and steps close to him, as if unaware of her boyfriend's affronted looks, "you know that you can't do better than me, and you also know that you can't manipulate me the way you charm your little lady friends. If you want to date me, you're going to have to work for it and earn it."

She's speaking Jackson's language better than anyone else in the world, and sometimes Jackson wonders just how much Lydia knows about him, just how clearly she can see him through all of his posturing and smirking.

Looking at him, everyone else sees nothing but the polished image he has carefully crafted to be someone at all: the careless golden jock of Beacon Hills, who is popular and envied because he's the best at everything he tries and who is also despised because he's a selfish jerk. People usually talk about overachieving in regards to him and they tell him that he's already good enough and that he should slow down from time to time and enjoy what he has accomplished so far.

They don't understand anything about him.

Lydia, on the other hand, always tells him that he can do better, that he can be more if he only tries, and she never sounds like she doubts whether or not he will succeed in the end. And whenever he meets her expectations, she always smiles at him radiantly – her genuine smile that is, not one of her perfect similes of a smile.

It can be intoxicating, being the center of a smile like that, because it's rewarding in a way little else is.

"Um," Marcel says and puts his hand on Lydia's arm to divert her attention from Jackson. "Lydia? Right now, we are dating and," he laughs a little uncomfortably, "it's not like there's a reason for us to be broken up by the time Jackson becomes lacrosse captain. Well, that is if he does, which is not likely going to happen this year, no offense, dude."

Jackson bares his teeth in a cold smirk and decides that this guy is his least favorite of the boyfriends of either Lydia or Danny. And that's saying something because Jackson has hated both guys Danny had dated more than any of Lydia's exes.

"You see, Lydia, maybe you shouldn't say things like that because what we have –"

"I'm sorry," Lydia interrupts Marcel, pulling her arm away from his hand casually, "but are you trying to say that this," she waves her hand between her body and Marcel, "was something special?" Her eyebrows are raised very high, speaking of doubt and disbelief.

Jackson's smile becomes a little more genuine.

"Yeah. It is." Apparently for Marcel the penny hasn't dropped yet.

Lydia smiles like she pities him, and pats his arm in a gesture that is nothing if not short of condescending. "Past tense, Marcel. You should really use the past tense." Then she spins on her heel and walks over to a group of girls, joining their conversation with ease, as if she'd been part of it all along.

"In case you were wondering –" Jackson says cheerfully, thinking that Coach Finstock has a point. The misery of other people is giving him, too, a special kind of joy. Perhaps because it is a welcome distraction from Jackson's own issues. "– you just got dumped."

Marcel's head snaps towards him and he glares at Jackson. "She dumped _me_ on the _off-chance_ of _you_ making _captain_ this season? Really?"

"Apparently," Jackson says smugly although he's pretty sure that he's not actually the main reason for Lydia's decision. However, he won't do anything to deter Marcel from his belief, that's for sure.

Marcel scoffs. "You two deserve each other. You couldn't hold a relationship for more than ten days even if your life depended on it, and she's only considering you at all because you have potential to look good on her résumé."

"Well, I certainly look better than you, that's true," Jackson agrees.

"You know what?" Marcel hisses, and now he's almost seething. "Even if you make captain and she dates you, I can already guarantee you that she'll dump you the moment she sees a more promising player on the field."

"According to you, I'd be incapable of being in a relationship for more than ten days anyway. Certainly it will take a little longer than that for someone better to come along; that is if someone better comes along at all, which is doubtful at best because – well, just look at me."

"You think you're funny?" Marcel throws his hands in the air. "Is everything a joke to you? Just wait until you get your heart broken!"

Jackson smiles coldly and leans in close to Marcel's face. "O'Leary, to get my heart broken, I'd need to have a heart in the first place."

"You -?" Marcel stares at him for a long moment in disbelief, and then he deflates. "Wow. I gotta say you're a freak, Whittemore. There's something seriously wrong with you. With that attitude of yours, I'd wager that you're going to die alone one day. I sure am glad that I'm out and don't have to put up with you any longer." He turns and walks away.

*

Weeks pass after the party, and no one's behavior changes. It's as if Lydia never mentioned the option of them as an item. She flirts with the vice-captain of the baseball team and other guys, and Jackson goes out with different girls whenever the mood strikes. Danny simply rolls with it and makes conversation with their ever-changing partners at the lunch table, unbothered and probably better at remembering their names than Jackson is.

"That right there is an indication that you should rethink your dating policy," Danny says with a longsuffering sigh. "Why don't you try getting to know a girl for a change?"

"Trust me, Danny, I get to know them as well as they want me to."

Not impressed with the meaningful waggle of Jackson's eyebrows, Danny rolls his eyes. "Get to know a girl as a _person_ , Jackson, not just in bed."

Actually, truth to be told, Jackson doesn't have all that much sex. He always leaves the decision how far to go to the girls; sex or no sex is not a deal-breaker or a game-changer for Jackson. He stops going out with them all the same after a couple of days, and almost all the girls prefer to have had a longer courtship first or to be in a steady relationship before they put out – which is fine with Jackson, but it won't happen with him.

So, he gets to make out with many girls, but more than heavy petting rarely happens, and the first time Jackson has actually intercourse is with a girl three years his senior, whom he meets in Switzerland during the winter break of freshman year. She's experienced and thinks he's an amazing snowboarder, hot and two years older than he actually is, and that's all it takes.

It's a fun, no strings attached experience, and there are zero feelings involved other than her awe of his athletic prowess. After two days, it's time for her flight back home to Dublin, and neither of them pretends that they're going to try and stay in contact. At the end of winter break, Jackson comes back to Beacon Hills, no longer a virgin, but other than that unchanged.

His focus remains on becoming the best on the lacrosse field and being the fastest in the swimming pool, on keeping his grades up and on attending every party and outing with the popular crowd of Beacon Hills. He also hangs out with Danny, hassles the latest guy that is trying to get into Danny's pants until the guy throws the towel – which to Jackson is solid proof that he never was good enough for Danny in the first place –, and he gets them fake IDs as an apology afterwards because Danny disagrees with this assessment and is openly upset with Jackson's dickishness this time. A trip to the nightclub Jungle gets Jackson back on Danny's good side and Danny a new boyfriend, who grates on Jackson's nerves, but is marginally more tolerable than guys before him, mostly because he doesn't go to Beacon Hills High and therefore isn't around all the time.

Lydia, on the other hand, is with them often these days and doesn't grate on Jackson's nerves. Lunch with her is sometimes even the highlight of Jackson's day because they genuinely share a sense of humor, which oftentimes is at the expense of other people, and Lydia's tongue is sharp and cutting. Her remarks and observations of other people are true and make Jackson laugh all the time, and even more so because he's aware that Lydia means all of it and isn't just saying something in the hopes of his approval like other girls do. When he's on the lacrosse field, she cheers him on, and afterwards she always points out what he could have done to be even better because her character is a strange combination of incredibly supportive and totally impatient when potential is wasted. In response, Jackson tends to scowl at her, but he can't help himself and takes her words to heart and works harder to prove himself.

The final lacrosse game of the season is a couple of weeks after Lydia's fifteenth birthday party, and after Coach Finstock's _Independence Day_ speech, he appoints Jackson the new team captain and Danny the goalie because the former team captain and goal keeper has broken his ankle the day before. Jackson leads his team to victory, and Danny proves himself in the goal. Coach Finstock crows in glee and everyone in the audience cheers Jackson on, louder and more vehement than ever before. The experience, the sight and the sound of the audience when the game is over – it is exhilarating, and standing in the middle of the field with his teammates, Jackson feels for the first time like people are really seeing him and thinking of him as of someone truly remarkable, someone they won't forget.

At the after-party, everyone celebrates Jackson's success and the team's victory, and Jackson realizes with a start that just like that he has established his position on top of the school hierarchy, not just in his class, because even juniors and seniors acknowledge him now as an equal.

Jackson laughs and preens and postures, and the night is incredible.

At some point, he turns around and finds Lydia walking towards him.

"Come to congratulate the victor?" he asks her, expecting the usual congratulatory kiss on the cheek, followed by a friendly slap on the arm and a detailed résumé about what he could have done better. That's what Lydia does after every game. It has become kind of like a ritual for Jackson.

"No," Lydia says, though. Then she reaches out, curls her fingers into his button-down and pulls him in, kissing him fiercely. Thrown off-balance, Jackson needs a second to get with the program, but then he wraps his arms around her, lets his eyes drift close and kisses her back.

Lydia, as someone who's always in charge, doesn't give him time to take control of the kiss. She licks into his mouth and bites his lip, and her fingers scratch over his skull, messing up his perfect hair and moving his head exactly to her liking.

Jackson doesn't mind any of it.

When Lydia finally breaks the kiss, her lipstick is smeared, and Jackson tastes its strawberry flavor on his lips.

Lydia smiles, her cheeks flushed and her green eyes ablaze, and it's impossible that there is any girl in the world as beautiful as she is in that very moment.

"No," she repeats, and her hand is still lingering on his chest, her warmth seeping through the thin fabric into his skin. "I've come to tell the team captain that he's going to take me to the bowling alley tomorrow."

"Oh, is he now?" Jackson asks with a smirk.

Lydia gives him a look.

*

So, yes, he does take her to the bowling alley, and it's more fun than he has imagined because Lydia doesn't hit a single pin at first and decides that Jackson should teach her. When he comes up behind her, she leans back into him, smiles wickedly, and the smell of her hair fills his nose, distracting him from the game when he should be teaching her, and together they only make two pins fall.

Jackson isn't comfortable with this outcome at first – it feels too much like a failure on his part –, but after he makes a strike on his own and Lydia tells him to help her out again, he slowly relaxes and realizes that Lydia isn't playing the game to win, or even just to get better, but to give them a reason to get close to each other and flirt outrageously. He still gets to show off how masterfully he knows to bowl and to prove himself, but he also gets to run his hands over Lydia's arms and side, to hug her to his body and to kiss her all the time, which makes everything even better.

By the time he drives her home in his brand new Porsche, he has decided that he loves bowling. She kisses him goodnight, barely a brush of lips this time, and tells him to take her to dinner the next day. He watches her until the door closes behind her, already deciding on a restaurant.

*

Three days after the lacrosse season has ended, Jackson's parents are out of town and Lydia comes over because she wants to have a movie date and Lydia Martin always gets what she wants.

Jackson doesn't mind until she takes the film she wants to see out of her bag and it's _The Notebook_.

"Really?" Jackson asks, and Lydia doesn't do anything but look at him.

Jackson caves faster than he's ever going to admit and tells himself that it won't hurt him to watch the movie a second time and that maybe Lydia will be more interested in making out than watching the film anyway.

He's wrong about that.

Lydia's eyes are glued to the TV-screen for the duration of the movie, entirely dismissing Jackson's presence and shoving his head away when he tries to distract her with soft kisses on her neck. Eventually Jackson gives up, settles down next to her and lets the absolutely unbelievable story about a love that entwines two hearts so tightly that they stick together even after one forgets who she is wash over him.

Once the movie is over, Lydia climbs into his lap and kisses him, one hand in his hair because she loves messing it up and does it whenever she has the chance, and the other working on the buttons of his shirt.

"We should have sex now," she tells him between kisses, and Jackson's mouth goes dry, his blood rushing south.

"You sure?"

Lydia pulls away and meets his gaze. Her eyes are dark and her lips are already swollen, and she's temptation personified because there isn't a living person in this world, who could be attracted to women and not be attracted to Lydia Martin, Jackson is certain of it.

"It's our third date. It's all right to put out. Don't worry, you won't look like you're easy," she says, laughing at him. "And we should make the most of the time we have together, don't you think?"

Kissing her again, he runs his hands over her back, down and up again, and his fingers linger on the zipper. Then the words register and he tilts his head at her in question. "Of the time we have together?"

Lydia frames his face with her hands and brushes her lips over his mouth just enough to make him helplessly follow her mouth with his when she puts a little distance between their faces and says, "Yeah. It's not like this is going to be forever, is it?"

Jackson blinks a couple of time, trying to get some of his blood back into his head to regain some semblance of a brain because right now all he can think is that he wants this to be forever, that he wants her forever.

Which is ridiculous, Jackson realizes even through the clouding haze of lust. Nothing is forever. Everything is temporary and has to be earned – and so far he has only earned the right to go out with Lydia by becoming captain of the lacrosse team.

This isn't like Lydia's movie, this is reality.

This isn't love, these are just teenage hormones.

This, Lydia and Jackson together, isn't forever. They both know it.

"Exactly," Lydia says, and Jackson doesn't know whether he has said any of this aloud or if she has read everything in his expression. "That's why we should make the most out of it now. We could be good together as long as it lasts." She dives down and mashes their mouths together, her hands batting his away so that she can pull the zipper down.

The straps of her dress slip from her shoulders. Her dress starts sliding down her body and reveals soft skin that Jackson wants to touch and kiss more than anything in the world.

Lydia looks at Jackson, her mouth pink and her eyes hungry, and pushes him down onto the bed, her hands scalding hot on his skin.

Jackson stops thinking and lets himself fall.

*

Lydia is right. They are good together.

Nothing really changes in their relationship in general, only kissing and cuddling and sex is added to it. They hang out in school together, but they already did that all the time before, and it appears that nobody is particularly surprised that they have decided to hook up. Many people are jealous, either of Lydia or of Jackson, and given Jackson's relationship history, it is generally assumed that they won't be together for long. The only person, who seems genuinely happy – and even relieved – about the turn of events, is Danny, who claps Jackson on his back and tells him not to mess it up.

Jackson just laughs at him and tells him that he's a catch, the best anyone can get, Lydia Martin included.

"Oh, you are so going to mess this up," Danny mutters, resigned, and even if Jackson doesn't admit it, secretly he believes that Danny is right.

*

But a couple of months pass, and no one messes up. They get along and they fight and they make up again. Somehow they make it work.

Jackson stays on top of the school hierarchy, proving himself as the best at every chance he gets, and Lydia supports him and encourages him, while she keeps playing the persona of Lydia Martin. Jackson lets her be whoever she wants to be and goes along with it. It makes her happy, and he likes nothing better than her genuine laugh.

Jackson's birthday comes and goes and so does the summer, and Jackson and Lydia still enjoy each other's company. Jackson's parents invite Lydia to their house in the Hamptons, and Lydia is happy to agree. They spend their holidays together, and two days before they start their sophomore year in high school, Jackson gives Lydia a key to his house when they are lying in bed.

"A key to your house? Already?" Lydia says, the smile of a smug cat in her voice.

"Oh, please. It's not like this is a wedding ring." Jackson isn't actually certain what it is or means – he keeps telling himself that he's just giving her the key, so she won't have to wait outside if he's late and his parents aren't home –, but it feels right, and when he'd told his parents that he wanted to give Lydia his house key, it hadn't taken much to get their permission.

Lydia laughs and teases, "So, you're just making me a more accessible late night bootie call?" because Lydia still speaks Jackson's language better than anyone.

Jackson smiles and wraps his arms around her. "Late night. Late afternoon. Early morning," he says, peppering kisses on her hair and shoulder before he settles down behind her. Happiness and contentment and warmth spread through his body while Lydia relaxes into his embrace, the key still in her hand, held like it's something precious.

Jackson has never been at peace like this before. Only with Lydia he ever feels like he knows who he is because Lydia seems to know it and help him be that person.

Sophomore year, so he thinks, will be great. He's on top of the school hierarchy already. He's captain of the lacrosse team and the swim team. He's Danny Mahealani's best friend and he's dating Lydia Martin.

For once, Jackson's life couldn't be better.

*

Things start falling apart after New Year when Scott McCall makes first line at lacrosse.

There are so many things wrong with this that Jackson doesn't understand how it is possible that he's the only one, who notices that something is off. Two weeks prior, Scott had been a severe asthmatic, barely able to run across the field once without breaking down and struggling for oxygen. The only reason he'd managed to make it on the team at all at the beginning of sophomore year had been his determination and Coach Finstock's utter disregard for anyone's health.

But now Scott has suddenly turned into a better goalie than Danny and is able to even catch Jackson's ball, and he runs and jumps across the field like he has trained and played lacrosse for years like a pro.

Jackson recognizes competition when he sees it, but it's Lydia's cheer for Scott and the challenging look she gives Jackson a second later that makes something, which had warmed up over the past months, go cold inside Jackson again.

Before that day, Jackson had never given Scott a second thought. Scott had been Stiles's friend, a little quieter and kinder than Stiles, in some ways rather similar to Danny, and Jackson had dismissed Scott as irrelevant and never gone out of his way to make Scott's life difficult. But in the instant Scott gets Coach Finstock's admiration and Lydia's open enthusiasm, everything changes.

Scott becomes McCall in Jackson's mind, a rival, whom he needs to get rid of, and his first explanation for McCall's sudden lacrosse talent is that McCall is taking steroids. He corners McCall against the lockers, but McCall only stares at him wide-eyed and confused and doesn't spill the beans.

McCall's behavior during the first game he gets to play is strange, even apart from his impossible way to move and score when the odds are stacked against him, and his glove, which Jackson picks up after the game, is torn in the weirdest way.

And maybe things would have gone differently if Jackson had had to only interact with McCall on the lacrosse field, but McCall's reciprocated infatuation with Lydia's new best friend Allison Argent leads more and more to McCall invading every aspect of Jackson's life. Without trying to or realizing it, McCall starts to destroy everything Jackson has built in the past year.

All too soon, Lydia decides that they should go on a double date, saying, "What about bowling? You love to bowl, Jackson," and Jackson replies, "Yeah. With actual competition," but he gives in to what Lydia wants like he so often does.

It starts out harmless enough. Lydia asks him for his help as usual, laughs when he kisses her and leans into his arms. Thinking of their first date, Jackson decides that maybe not everything is going to be awful tonight, and feels vindicated when he gets a strike right away. Allison is quite a good player, too, but what's even better is that McCall is pathetic and a joke.

Of course, then suddenly, McCall turns into the perfect bowler and strikes out every time.

And then Lydia looks at McCall and asks him for help.

Something inside Jackson wilts. However, McCall still has something from the kid he was before New Year and sticks by the side of the girl he actually likes instead of going for the one that is perfection. McCall is a good guy, and Jackson tries to convince himself that he can have fun even if McCall is suddenly just as good at the game, and he gets up to play with Lydia.

Lydia rejects his offer.

A heavy weight settles in Jackson's belly, and he waves at her to go on, then.

Lydia strikes.

Cold and frozen inside, Jackson pulls his arm away when Lydia sits down next to him. Allison points out Lydia's perfect form and Lydia plays it off like usual, but Jackson can't even look at her.

He threatens McCall later that evening because that's the only thing he can do. If he doesn't manage to get whatever stuff McCall is taking, Jackson will lose everything because he won't be the best anymore. And while people like McCall probably can find someone, who cares about them and loves them even when they are losers, Jackson can't; he has realized that at the age of five and it's still true. Jackson has to earn everything. He has to study long hours for his perfect grades. He has to practice lacrosse every day. He has to win the game to keep the girl.

If he doesn't, she turns away because he's not worth her time.

He's not worth anything because he is no one and has no one.

Jackson simply has to be the best, or he might as well not exist at all.

*

If McCall's sudden rise on the lacrosse field has already been bad, meeting McCall's dealer makes everything worse.

The guy slams Jackson into the lockers and digs his nails so deep into Jackson's nape that the skin breaks, and the wound takes about a month to heal. Nightmares come with it, dreams about fire and screams and the smell of burnt human flesh, and hallucinations of claws crawling out of his mouth. Jackson's health deteriorates quickly – not that anyone would take notice or genuinely care.

Lydia is the one, who tells him who McCall's dealer actually is, the same day he meets the guy. They are in the school's parking lot, and Jackson witnesses McCall shoving the guy into Stiles's Jeep.

"Wasn't that Derek Hale?" Lydia asks, examining her nails when Jackson gets back into the car.

"Who?"

"Derek Hale," Lydia repeats. "He was suspected of murder after they found that girl in the woods." She shoots Jackson a look under her eyelashes. "He's very attractive, isn't he?" She licks her lips and smiles.

Jackson grips the steering wheel a little harder, hates McCall and Derek Hale something fierce, and pretends that Lydia's words don't hit home.

He has known that the day would come. He has known that they aren't forever. He has known it since the beginning, and yet he has deluded himself into believing that they are something more, something real.

They aren't.

And even if they ever have been, they won't be much longer.

Lydia is starting to move on, not bothering to cover it up, her interest in McCall's athletic talents, and now possibly Derek Hale's handsome face, too, obvious. They might not have broken up yet, but it's only a matter of time. Jackson needs to ready himself for it and focus on what is truly important. What he has to do is finding out McCall's secret and reestablishing himself as the best player on the field.

Nothing else is more important than keeping up the façade of being someone.

*

They don't break up as quickly as Jackson has thought they would, but it doesn't lessen the strain on their relationship because neither of them says or does anything about it. It only gets worse because Jackson cannot look at McCall or Lydia anymore without hearing Marcel O'Leary's memory voicing what he's always known, _"Even if you make captain and she dates you, I can already guarantee you that she'll dump you the moment she sees a more promising player on the field."_

The never-ending repetition in his mind steadily convinces Jackson that it cannot be anything but the truth, that what he and Lydia have had is already gone – if it ever was anything other than part of their masks, that is, which seems unlikely nowadays –, and he becomes colder and more reckless and careless every day. He leans closer to Allison than necessary, smiles at her a little more often than he usually would, and notices that Lydia doesn't come to his side when Stiles punches him in the face.

He tells himself that he only hurts from the punch, that the ache in his chest doesn't mean anything. After all, there's nothing inside him that could hurt.

Jackson has always lied to the people around him, pretended to be a lot more self-confident and stronger than he actually is. Lying to himself isn't difficult.

*

McCall is appointed co-captain.

Lydia kisses McCall.

McCall injures Danny on the field.

_McCall is co-captain and Lydia has kissed him._

McCall is a werewolf – faster and stronger than any human ever will be –, and the only way to be able to compete with McCall is by becoming a werewolf, too.

_McCall is co-captain and Lydia has kissed him._

Jackson provokes McCall to prove his theory, whispers nasty stuff about what he's going to do with Allison one day, and smiles, watching McCall's reaction.

_McCall is co-captain and Lydia has kissed him._

Jackson sends Lydia a text and informs her that they are no longer dating.

_McCall is co-captain and Lydia has kissed him._

Lydia comes to Jackson, seething and angry and achingly beautiful – because looking at her will never not take his breath away apparently –, and demands an explanation. Jackson bestows his best well practiced smile on her and tells her coldly, "In preparation for some big changes, I've decided to drop some of the dead weight in my life. And you are just about the deadest." He has always had a vicious and cruel streak, and he knows how to cut deep. As does Lydia, who calls after him that it will only take her seconds to get over their relationship. He doesn't doubt for a second that she's telling anything but the truth.

_McCall is co-captain and Lydia has kissed him._

Jackson has to become a werewolf or he will end up with nothing. As nothing.

McCall is co-captain and a werewolf, and Lydia has kissed McCall because he's more than Jackson, and Jackson?

Who or what is Jackson Whittemore to anyone in the world if he isn't the best at everything?

Answer: Nothing.

*

Jackson tries to force getting the bite. He blackmails McCall and goes with Derek Hale when he shows up in the locker room, but all he gets out of it are threats and barely veiled disgust from Derek Hale and warnings and threats from McCall. He takes Allison to the Formal because McCall forces him to do it, and sees Lydia climbing out of Stiles's Jeep.

Jackson has already drunk a lot tonight, and it helps him keep his composure and only sneer at her when he passes her. He reminds himself that they were never real and that it's just the liquor that burns in his chest. It's a cold burn. Everything about Jackson is cold these days.

An hour later he gets a call from Stiles that Lydia is on the lacrosse field and needs his help urgently. He finds her, bloodied and unconscious, and suddenly Jackson is more afraid than ever before because Lydia looks frail and close to dying, and what if she does? What if she dies and the last thing he ever said to her was, "Obviously. It's Hugo Boss."

He almost can't breathe, screams for help and follows the ambulance to the hospital where he stays, watching Lydia's still and pale body in the white bed, all too aware that all of this has to be his fault somehow because he wasn't good enough at anything.

Stiles, too, throws that truth in his face. He points out that Jackson is feeling guilty and that Stiles doesn't give a crap about Jackson – just like Derek had told him that no one would come to Jackson's aid if he screamed because no one cares about Jackson even when Jackson does his best to be perfect –, and Jackson refrains from saying that Stiles apparently doesn't give a crap about Lydia either if he leaves her hurt and alone on the lacrosse field. Instead he only tells Stiles that he has a car and Stiles doesn't, and that gets him a ride along to the fight against the alpha werewolf, who had turned McCall into something out of Jackson's league and ruined Jackson's life.

When the alpha is dead and Derek has become alpha, Jackson doesn't return to the hospital because Scott and Stiles do. If Lydia wakes up, the person she will want to see is certainly going to be the guy, with whom she went to the Formal, or the guy, who is the best at everything nowadays, and not Jackson, who is neither and nothing.

He needs the bite to be someone. Anyone.

*

Derek Hale smiles, his eyes red and his teeth elongating.

*

That's when things spiral out of control, and Jackson loses more and more every day. The confidence he briefly gains is the first to go when he doesn't change during the full moon, and Lydia bears the brunt of his frustration when he blames everything on her. When he looks back at her in the school hallway, he knows that he's a horrible person and has done something unforgivable, but he's nothing and nobody, and he has nothing and nobody, and maybe nothing and nobody matters anymore anyway.

Lydia is better off without him, hating him.

He keeps walking away from her into the cold.

A little hope returns when Danny tells him that someone has manipulated the tape and Jackson hears Lydia's heart tell him the truth when she claims to hate him.

She doesn't hate him although she should, and she lets him kiss her and kisses him back, and for a few precious seconds Jackson feels warm again.

Everything that happens afterwards is a mess of memory loss, lost time, weird awakenings in strange places and positions, blame, guilt, blood and death, and horrible, terrible truths.

*

Jackson is a monster.

Jackson is controlled by someone else.

Jackson has no one.

*

Two statements above are true.

*

Jackson is a monster and controlled by someone else, but there is one person, who comes for him.

Just for him.

Even though he has nothing left to offer. Even though he is the lowest creature on Earth. Even though he doesn't remember who he is – if he ever had an identity at all and wasn't just an empty shell.

Lydia shows up anyway. She doesn't flinch away from the scaly lizard creature, which had been disgusted by its own sight every time it caught its reflection anywhere, and she holds up the key he once gave her. Her gaze is scared, yet certain and hopeful, never wavering from his eyes, and the monster that has no identity remembers a girl that is braver and smarter and more beautiful than anyone else in the world. The girl that acts like she's cold and hard, but is full of warmth and truth. The only girl that ever looked at him and made him feel like he was real and could be more. Like Jackson Whittemore was really someone and not just a mask without anything behind it.

He is Jackson Whittemore, and Lydia Martin says, her voice breaking and thick with tears, "I do. I do still love you. I do. I do. I do still love you. I do."

Slowly dropping forward, Jackson feels her arms coming up around his body and he remembers lying in bed with her, happy and sated and at peace, and this is exactly what he feels right now. The sounds of her voice and breathing and heartbeat wrap themselves around his mind and heart, warm and familiar and loving, and Jackson finally lets himself believe that this is something that won't just disappear, something that has actually never disappeared even when he'd thought that it had.

This, Lydia and Jackson together, just might have been forever if only Jackson hadn't messed up so badly that he has to pay with his life for it now.

Lydia is the anchor of his whole being in the uncertainty and chaos of this world.

Jackson stops thinking and lets himself fall.

*

When he opens his eyes, they are feral, his fingers are claws and his mouth opens to let out a howl on instinct.

Jackson is a werewolf, something that he'd felt the need to become since the moment he'd found out werewolves actually existed, and he'd always imagined that he would feel great and accomplished once he turned. But now that it has finally happened, he's afraid and confused and exhausted instead.

Because he should be dead, not a werewolf, and Jackson doesn't understand it. He doesn't understand anything, and the moment he regains enough control over his body to act on more than just instinct, he latches on to the only thing he has finally managed to find as true for himself. His ears pick Lydia's heartbeat, erratic and stuttering, and her hitching breath out of all the countless noises that are currently surrounding him, and suddenly the claws and the fangs retract on their own without his doing.

Jackson has no idea what this means or how any of his newly gained abilities work, but right now he really doesn't care because what he actually needs is to see the look in Lydia's eyes and find out whether the way she looks at him has changed. So he turns his head and locks eyes with her, and although he's scared and uncertain again, he feels less hopeless than he has in the past months.

Lydia is staring at him, her face still streaked with tears, but her eyes are already filling with tentative hope and happiness, and then she's running towards him and flinging her arms around him, holding on tightly as if she's afraid he might disappear. Jackson wraps his arms around her, buries his face in her neck and breathes in, finding out that another of his senses has been heightened by the change and that Lydia's scent is even more intoxicating to him now than it had already been before. Lydia's hand finds its way into his hair and messes it up, and Jackson almost sobs at the familiarity of the act and at the realization that Lydia is treating him exactly as she did before everything want awry.

Jackson may be a werewolf now, another creature he doesn't quite understand yet and another mask that he doesn't yet know how to wear and use, but to Lydia he's still Jackson Whittemore. To Lydia he's still the same person. To Lydia he's still important.

Lydia still loves him.

Warmth blooms in Jackson's chest and spreads through every part of his body, finally driving the icy cold out of his limbs where it had been for too long.

What follows afterwards, is a blur for Jackson. There is Stiles, who looks miserable and broken and exhausted, and he's the first to leave, alone and without meeting anyone's eyes. Scott and Isaac disappear next, after Scott has said that he'll come to the Argents' home once he has spoken with his mother, who is apparently going to make up an explanation for Jackson's disappearance and miraculous recovery. Meanwhile, Allison's father agrees to give Jackson and Lydia a ride, and during the drive he talks non-stop about a code while Allison, pale and withdrawn and quiet, stares out of the windshield. Left behind, with no one glancing back at him even once, is Derek Hale, looking incredibly alone as he watches one after another walk away and never tries to reach out or to talk to anyone.

Jackson lets all of it wash past him, not caring about anything but Lydia's warm hand in his.

*

They hole up in Jackson's room because the Whittemores are out of town and on their flight to Rome – it's their wedding anniversary this week – and won't be informed about anything that had happened at the lacrosse game until the plane has landed in a couple of more hours. On Lydia's urging, Jackson leaves a message on his mother's voicemail, telling her that there was some incident today and a big misunderstanding, but not to worry about him because he's fine. He keeps it as vague and short as possible, but by the time he's done, Lydia has already settled down on his bed. She has taken off her shoes and has her back leaned against the headboard of his bed, perfectly comfortable and at home for all appearances, like she always seems to be in his room.

She looks expectantly at Jackson, and Jackson knows that there are a million things they need to talk about. There are a million apologies he has to make if they want to move past the last months, and three small words he should say to her because they are true even if he has spent the past eleven years avoiding to use those words in the same sentence.

But people don't change from one moment to the next, so what Jackson says first, is, "You want to watch a movie?" They can talk while they watch it, Jackson tells himself, and awkward silences will probably be a little less awkward if there's the sound of a movie in the background and if they have something to look at instead of each other from time to time.

Lydia smiles at him – a genuine smile. "I wouldn't mind."

Jackson reaches for a DVD on his shelf, which he hasn't watched once although he'd purchased it more than a month ago. He puts the DVD in the player and joins Lydia on the bed.

"Although we're breaking our tradition today, I suppose," Lydia says, and Jackson raises his eyebrows in question. Lydia shrugs. "We're usually watching _The Notebook_ together, right? But asking you go to Video 2 C just to make you suffer through it feels a little mean after everything that has happened tonight."

Jackson narrows his eyes at her. "Hah! I knew you didn't like the film. You've been punishing me for whatever I did the day we watched it first ever since, haven't you?" It had been a nagging suspicion of his because no one could have been that obsessed with a movie that they rejected to watch something else all the time. And Lydia had never relented, not once since they started dating.

Lydia looks at Jackson with wide, innocent eyes – which means that she's totally guilty and evil. But then she shrugs again. "Maybe at first that was the idea. But I do like the film and –" Her eyes dart to the side and she laughs quietly to herself, before she meets his gaze again and finishes, "– I also liked that you would watch it with me every time I wanted. It, yeah, it was nice that you would do that for me."

"Uh-huh," Jackson says. "Just for the record, I really, really hate that film. I do." Then he points the remote at the TV-screen and hits play.

Thirty seconds later, Lydia stares at him wide-eyed, and this time she's openly surprised. "Jackson." She lays her left hand on his arm and gestures with her right hand at the TV-screen. "This is _The Notebook_."

"You noticed that, huh?"

"You hate the film."

It isn't a question, but Jackson confirms it anyway. "I do. Very much so."

Lydia tightens her grip on his arm. "Yet you own it. You took it from your shelf, so you own it. And it definitely wasn't among your possessions the last time I was in your room or we watched it. We always had to go to the rent store because you refused buying it because –"

"Because I always hoped that we would watch something else for a change." Jackson remembers it all too well. The million fights they had had over which movie to watch, and he'd always argued his case, but never won.

Lydia blinks once, a tiny smile tugging on the corners of her mouth. "You bought it after you dumped me, didn't you?"

He did. It had been after Derek had taken him to the Hale house and Scott had come to his rescue, and a day or two before the Formal. Jackson had seen the DVD on a shelf in a store by accident, and in the spur of the moment he'd bought it. However, he had never watched it, although he had taken it into his hands several times in the past month, staring at the cover and turning it over and over in his hands.

Lydia leans forward and presses her lips to his in a firm, close-mouthed kiss. When she pulls away, she meets his eyes and says, "I love you, too."

Stunned, he probably does his best impression of a fish because his mouth is opening and closing repeatedly, but no words come out. With a smile, Lydia pats his arm, then lifts it and rearranges his body to her liking.

"I –" Jackson tries, he really does, but the words escape him. "Lydia, I –" It shouldn't be so hard. It should be simple, easy, to tell her the truth. "I –"

But it isn't.

After a second, Lydia smacks his chest. "Hush, Jackson. I want to watch the film. It's my favorite, remember? Afterwards we'll talk." She settles down against him comfortably, her body relaxed and her eyes glued to the screen.

She's warm, and she smells good, and she's here in his arms. And she doesn't demand the impossible of him. She never did because although she'd often criticized him and pointed out what he could do differently and better, she'd never asked anything of him that he couldn't accomplish.

Because she sees exactly who he is.

And despite that, she's still here. She still has come for him. She loves him.

_I love you_ , Jackson thinks almost desperately, the words caught in his heart, and tightens his arm around her. _I love you. I really do._

Lydia smiles and entwines their fingers.


End file.
